Egypt’s El-Sisi makes first visit to Turkey following years of tensions

Yesterday (September 4) Egyptian President Abdulfettah Sisi made his first visit to Turkey since coming to power in late 2013. Diplomatic relations between the Mediterranean neighbors have been severed since Sisi assumed power in a military coup d’etat that saw the deposition of democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood supported by Ankara.

The Egyptian President was greeted at Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Wednesday, where the two exchanged several long handshakes on a runway draped in turquoise carpets before proceeding to the presidential complex in a convoy. 

Economic cooperation and lock-step on Gaza

Wednesday’s meeting saw the two leaders emphasize their economic cooperation, encouraging investors and entrepreneurs on both sides to invest in the other. Erdoğan touted Egypt as one of Ankara’s five most important trading partners. Sisi announced that Cairo expects trade with Ankara to increase in coming years following the signing of a new free trade agreement.

On the topic of the ongoing war in Gaza, both leaders restated their support for a ceasefire agreement. Erdoğan thanked Sisi’s government for assisting in the delivery of aid to the war-torn enclave. According to Erdoğan, Turkish assistance to Gaza has constituted 32% of all the aid received so far.

Sisi reiterated Egypt’s hope for a two-state solution and expressed support for the deescalation of recent tensions in the West Bank.

Relationship hits rock bottom

Turkey sought an active role in Egypt following the resignation of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, with then-Prime Minister Erdoğan making several visits to Cairo, and then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davetoğlu touting the Ankara-Cairo relationship as a stronghold of democracy in the Middle East.

Relations soured, however, when Turkey-backed President Mohammed Morsi, originally elected to office in 2012, was removed in a military coup led by then-General Sisi in the summer of 2013. Morsi, a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, had faced months of mass protests across the country over a series of judicial reforms seen as consolidating authoritarian power.

The killing of hundreds of pro-Morsi demonstrators in central Cairo by Sisi-aligned Egyptian forces in August 2013 provoked strong condemnation from Turkey. In the months following the event, Prime Minister Erdoğan began using the Rabia symbol, a four-finger gesture associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, in speeches and rallies to express solidarity with Morsi and his supporters.

Months of back-and-forth saw Erdoğan accuse Sisi of being a ‘tyrant’, with Sisi responding saying that Erdoğan should not meddle in Egypt’s domestic affairs. Tensions climaxed in November 2013 when Turkey’s ambassador in Cairo was expelled.

Turkey’s alleged harboring of Muslim Brotherhood members, seen as an existential threat by the Sisi government, continued to be a major point of controversy after Sisi assumed the presidency in 2014. In various comments throughout the 2010s, Erdoğan refused the notion of normalization with Egypt, saying such a move would ‘legitimize coup plotters’. 

Despite the icey relations on the diplomatic stage, economic relations have continued since Sisi’s rise to power. In 2018, Egypt became Turkey’s largest trading partner in Africa.

Ankara and Cairo stood opposed to one another the Libya conflict in the late 2010s, although recent conflicts in Gaza and Sudan have seen the two neighbors take the same side.

A gradual thawing of ties

Wednesday’s meeting between the two leaders is the latest development in a gradual diplomatic thaw between the two countries since Turkey’s ambassador was expelled from Cairo in November 2013 following Morsi’s deposition and Sisi’s rise to power.

In 2021, deputy foreign ministers from both countries held a series of meetings aimed at restoring their diplomatic relations. While the talks were assessed by both sides as having been ‘positive’, they did not lead to an official restoration of diplomatic relations between Ankara and Cairo.

In 2022, a warm handshake between the two leaders on the sidelines of the World Cup in Qatar raised expectations that a diplomatic thaw was imminent.

In February 2024, Erdoğan visited Cairo for the first time in 12 years, and the two leaders signed several agreements, describing the meeting as ‘turning a new leaf’. The agreements signed in February aimed at increasing trade between the two countries, and the talks also centered on increasing aid to Gaza through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing. 

Exploring hydrocarbon reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean by both countries is seen as a topic in which both countries stand to benefit from warming relations. Additionally, an increased willingness by Erdoğan in recent years to clamp down on Muslim Brotherhood activities in Turkey is also seen as satisfying one of Sisi’s major conditions for normalization. 

Written translated by Medyascope by Leo Kendrick

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